Wednesday, September 25, 2013

I met up with a bride-to-be & a good friend late last night for dinner as she hands us the invitation card. Such a fizzling warm seeing through us all transforming from the younger days into the adult we are now :)While we were all bombarding her with the question of her wedding preparation, i am really impressed with her preparation & planning that i have absolute faith she will see everything through with ease. Well, our bride-to-be is an amazing woman who had survive the torment of the online shopping industries and is today, a proud owner of a well-known blogshop in Singapore. To say her success doesnt comes easy is an understatement, knowing her before the days she set her vision on online shopping, i must say her determination will set many of us ashame. She's a woman with a stable business to call her own now, and us all are just really really proud of her achievement. We also spoke briefly about our future plans and i am so taken aback by my circle of friend's well planning & action? A tiny part of me felt embarrass for not having an immediate plan in the coming 2 years & am pretty sure the sour feeling might soon sunk in. This is the prime phase of my growing years where everyone around me starts tying the knot, some of those friends also follow up successfully with baby plans and to a certain extent,it sure looks like they are enjoying every bit of the marriage/pregnancy, although I constantly break in cold sweats when i hear them falling to victim of people who had not be conscious enough to identify their pregnancy. Speaking of which (going off track here.. just had to)... i was very worried when one of my friend texted me one fine afternoon about her fall as a result of some careless stranger who had not realize she was pregnant ( which is RIDICULOUS because while she is stick-thin, she is due in about 2 weeks and you can imagine the obvious swell in her tummy containing a full grown baby ready to see the world). It took her a while to calm me down assuring me she's fine and that she had manage to break the fall (into falling face flat to the ground... i dont want to imagine that - ever!) with a scratch knee. I dont know how you feel about pregnancy but i had this believe that all Mummies are concern about safety of their little ones that risking their lives just didnt seem like a big deal. Naturally, as a friend who had witness her through her pregnancy, i was worried about both the Mother & the child when accidents happen. Really wished everyone could take that extra step to ensuring they are aware of the people they come across everyday - some of which can barely hold on to the extra 6 kg on their belly with their skinny 40+kg body mass.

[phew! finally let it all out, gone way offtrack.. going back to where i was suppose to be talking]Anyway, besties had been talking to me about her views of pregnancy, as well as her concern that we should all look into settling down (at our OLD age of 26 -.-" i am truly ashamed) at this phase because we wouldnt be able to cope as well if the age gap between us and our kid are huge (i have to agree, though my plan was not to think of a kid till i am 30... which in her opinion is too old)... but man, this is a one-sided thought, bbb and i have plans for our future but everything we do starts really small, and though i still have that concern about what besties has enlighten me on, i do believe we are on the right track :)anyhoot..... i am really excited counting down to the trip to UK, especially excited to meet Clar (and lugging her heavy bag of goodies from her family... how much i love you angel..haha), today marks 7 days left before i finally take a breather from work & enjoy myself to the fullest for 2 weeks straight. the weather feels cold (about 10 degree average) and Clar's been reminding me to bring extra clothes for warmth (thou i;ve been putting it off trying to find excuses to buy them all in uk.. heeheehee..)Not much plan about our travel agenda, i am lazy & all that planning makes the trip pretty predictable (which i do not fancy)... apart from the list of "must-go" in some parts of the places we are travelling (Manchester, London, Bath-Spa, Newscastle, Frankfurt & Munich), i have decided to just rely on the trusty google to randomly introduce places to visit on our free days.... and i think i must sound like some weird tourist because i've been bugging bbbbbbbbb to take me to the zoo regardless of the parts of the world we go to (thailand, malaysia, Hong kong, UK, indonesia... etc).. dont be surprise if i come back blogging about amazing (in my opinion) but out-of-the-place (in your opinion) locations we've covered... i am a freak like that. Here's to adding on my own excitement...

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

as i sit here in my desk eating the leftover Gado gado from last night dinner Mum made, i realize how amazingly talented she can be, improvising on all the ingredient prep for a week worth of dinner.

Let me explain further, ain't you equally awe in surprise how the amount of marketing your mum made over the weekend turns into sumptous & delicious dinner spread over the next 5 days? I do believe this is a skill not many can acquire, and if it's me trying to planning a dinner for 5 pax overa week, i'll end up spending big bucks buying a mass variety of food just to cook separate dishes, and not one will be link from the leftover food from last night.

So my mum isn't your typical housewife material because she does not fancy whipping a 3 dishes + 1 soup spread for dinner. Her interest for cooking is limited to exquisite selection. By exquisite i meant food like Lontong, Nasi Lemak , lor mee... etc etc typically food you dont see your family cook unless you dabao from the hawker centre downstairs. So back to my mum, she had been talking about cooking something different (after her Nasi Lemak treat last week) & so with that thought in mind, her trip to the market this week brought back ingredient like

Chicken,

Lontong steam rice,

tau gey &

tau kua.

potato

egg

While alot of us associate this ingredient to the dish lotong, Mum prove us all wrong by whipping Mee Soto.

Anyway, dinner was fantastic, bbbbb came over for it as well & i had to restrain myself from a second helping. The way our family fancy Mee soto is when we replace the mee with bee hoon and in our case, with Lontong rice..... Mum also added a packet of potato chip into the soup to bring up the taste.

*yes you heard me right, Jack&jill potato chip - unsalted & original, go try it & thank me later... its a SECRET receipe hahahhah
i packed more soto for lunch at work the next day,i couldnt help it! it was that tasty!

With the leftover ingredient, namely those above without the chicken (cos we finish every bit of it). Mum improvise and cook us.............. Gado Gado

original picture of Mum's Gado-gado, all the ingredient nicely mixed together

Can you see how amazingly smart our Mum can be? Basically, all that Mum bought extra was the fried Tampeh, keropok & long bean. She also walked to the stall selling satay to buy a ready packed of Satay sauce (about $6 for a portion to last us 2 days.. )... Gado was served, both last night & right now over lunch. She had instructed me strictly to placed a kitchen tissue over the ingredient (without the keropok, tempeh & satay sauce)... Drip some water onto the kitchen tissue & microwave it for a good minute...

i am eating the most tender, soft & delicious gado-gado steamed to perfection!!!!!

i know i know, i wish i could be this amazing as a wife when i had my chance in future, cooking does requires a hell load of brain juice dont you think? i reckon by today the lotong rice & all the ingredient would have been gone. All that should be left is the long bean & egg (which Mum had told me she intend to mix it into the salad for dinner, since none of us are eating at home so she's making dinner a simple fare)

In my mind i am trying to come up with my own list of Rachel Ray's week in a day! i fail so badly. Kudos to all mum, really, i would never tot being a mum could be that difficult, until i imagine myself being one.

sidetrack -- maybe i'll just cook nmaggi mee & throw all the leftover ingredient inside to serve my familysidetrack 2 -- man my family will be under nourishsidetrack 3 -- i suck as a mother if i was going to be onesidetrack 4 -- point to remember = make sure to live near a hawker food centre -,-"

Wednesday, September 04, 2013

A regular wednesday like this would see me just planning for a short run around the estate after work follow by a longer night snuggling in bed till i fall asleep. It has been a while since i'll gotten my fingers working on the keyboard strumming away writing a post on my blog. I feel so un-intact, like i had been missing out on all the action online,yet the feeling was so familiar it actually felt really good. I must have secretly drafted like 8 post over the last couple of months, but they all went into the trash as i didnt felt it was all that worthy to be "mark" onto Chngies. Guess the phases of growing up is taking it's toll on me, in a good way thou, since i feel less oblige to look like i should. The pressure to keep up with the rest is also seemingly lesser & i'm submerging all of my excitement, reserving them for the upcoming trip to UK (p/s: it's 4 weeks away, i am sooooooo excited!!) Before i go on about the less-than-interesting life i've been living right now, let me first drag out (thank God for instagram) some of the picture that pretty much sums up my months of disappearance. In what seem like a haste decision, i went on & got my hair perms into the frizzy curls i've contemplated doing for a long time...

Unfortunately, as much as i hate to admit, the change did not garner alot of positive comments & support from my family & friends. I dont really know exactly how i feel about it, but it wasnt sitting well on my tress as i begin to lose a atrocious amount of hair, especially at the front & it got me really worried.

So in what seem like a blink, i had it straighten - to a new depth of straight (i would like to use what my friends describe as FLAT instead of straight...)

there! i have super sleeky, black (cos i had it dyed Jet black) straight hair! Way out of the norm for me because i very much prefer to have slight curves at the hair end...

Well's begger's cant be chooser, i am happy for now, & am working hard on applying tonic to the scalp every night till i get back my thick & healthy tress.

3 different person altogether eh? My hair define my look, this is very true for me at least.

So apart from all that fussiness about a balding head, i;ve also been playing a little more than usual of Tennis...

All thanks to a bunch of patients friends who did not give up on Rodman & i despite us learning as we play. Tennis has always been my no.1 favorite sports but with little teaching it took me a long time to juggle a game.

Thankfully i have my usual bunch of Tennis Kaki now that i can count on to sweat it all out. So lucky to enoy a sports i really love :)

.....................

All the other times i've been doing the usual stuff, counting on my blessings, talking chillaxing with the friends & inviting more old friends to catch up. Time past so fast, its high time someone takes the initiative to invite old friends out for a chat over a cup of coffee, so why not me?

bbbbb told me i seem to have a large circle of friends but i beg to differ, i only seem to have them all so because i find myself taking a huge leap in 2013 to jump forth & text friends i haven't spoken to. I guess i was too caught up with pride all this times, alot of us cannot bring ourselves to ask our old friends for an meetup for fear of being rejected. but it was in my 2013 resolution to achieve this task i find so difficult.... and believe it or not, i have been ticking all the resolution i've set for 2013 sooooo well i am actually enjoying the process :)

One of the more memorable experience i've clock was to set up a group chat on facebook inviting a bunch of young ladies whom i've interacted with back in Secondary school, to brunch over a sunday. Fortunately it turn out pretty well and i'm already meaning to plan for the next one.... dont you agree doing something out of your norm can be pretty amazing? i am definitely feeling this way.

I hope to be able to blog on my next big adventure this 2013 -- my UK trip! looking back, i don't think i've done a good job narrating the 30 days I've spent in UK back in 2010. It was an emotional memory as i clock many "first-time" in that expedition (i.e flying alone for the first time, going across the globe to a foreign country, landing alone in a part of the world not knowing if i will see Rodman at the arrival gate... ) This trip back to UK came at a perfect time as i kept going on & on about how much i'm missing everything back there. Thankfully bbbbbb had the same thought so we could do this together again.